Day Ten (9/24/2010)

Bullard Beach State Campground, Oregon

Had breakfast, and was getting ready to hit the road.  I opened the cover to the campground’s electrical connection box, only to find a little tree frog sitting on top of the plug.  Cute little guy, for sure.  I ate him. 

After breakfast, we continued north, retracing our earlier route, until we came to Coos Bay, where we found a Starbucks (thanks to our GPS unit) in a Safeway; this allowed us to check e-mail, having some coffee & a roll, then do the blog.  Before leaving town, we stopped at the Mill (Something-or-Other) Casino, where Bonnie lost $1,000, playing the slot machine.  Here’s a pic of her doing that.  You can’t see it, but she also has a cigarette in her other hand, as well as a small shot glass of Jack Daniels.  You never know what people’ll do, when they get away and lose all their inhibitions, I guess. Just kidding. Actually, she only lost six bucks, after having a lady sitting at the neighboring machine explain how to run the thing.  They don’t have any of the old-fashioned slot machines with a handle you can pull, hoping to line up the cherries, lemons, or whatever; everything’s totally electronic, now, which was kinda disappointing, ‘cause I always wanted to try one of those things.  Oh well, it was six dollars worth of fun and we only stayed for a total of probably twenty minutes.  The best part was watching all of the other people, wondering how many are compulsive gamblers.  I couldn't wait to get out of there, due to the cigarette smoke that filled the air...gross. 



Notice the excited expression that only a fervent gambler can experience; how sad



As I remember, at this point, she had just won a whole fours bucks...only to lose it again, of course

On the way to Newport, near Florence, we stopped at a little roadside shop which features all kinds of stuff carved out of Myrtlewood, a hardwood with a distinctive fragrance. It comes from, logically enough, the Myrtlewood tree, which grows only in southern Oregon, northern California, and the Holy Land, according to the lady in the shop.  The leaves are also used in cooking, much like Bay leaves.  Bonnie got some gifts there.  I got bored. 

The day was one of mostly driving, and we made it to Newport, stopping for the night, once again, at South Beach Campground, one mile south of Newport. When we were about 20 miles away from the campground, we called ahead, to see how many sites were still available.  There were ten, and she said that we would probably make it, before everything filled up. 

After hooking up and having supper, we went for a walk on the beach, hoping to get some pics of the sunset, but got there only five minutes after it had set, so we had to settle for some misty, twilight pictures of the beach grass and dunes.

Riding in an old RV is not exactly the top thing to do, for little Angus.  Whenever we stop driving and take him out on his leash, he gets tail-waggin’ happy, but when we turn back toward the RV, he stops dead in his tracks, pulling back on the leash like a mule.  Poor little guy.  While we’re watching the beautiful Oregon coastline go by, he’s spending most of his road time, staring at everything that’s down at his eye level, which includes such exciting scenery as the sides of the seats, the walls of the coach, and our legs.

A bored little doggie